‘Remember the Big One and how you thought you’d seen back of it?’
Lorne groaned aloud. ‘Have someone call Garth and fill him in. As they say, misery enjoys company.’
‘That’s seven so far,’ Fred Hiller told DS Garth Williams and DCI Lorne Michaels. ‘This is going to take a while. The bodies are in various stages of decomposition, and so far there are signs of torture and dismemberment, so we don’t want to miss anything. Oh, and I’ve some bad news- no teeth. Removed along with upper and lower mandible, hopefully after death. Grim business, this.’
‘I want DNA from all the bodies,’ Garth told him. ‘And,’ he said to Lorne, ‘I want DNA samples from as many parents of as many missing children as possible. We’re got to establish a database. We’ll have to get reconstructions of the children’s faces as well and post them. Maybe we’ll get lucky and someone will recognise one or two of them.’
‘Might be a problem there,’ Fred interrupted. ‘Some of these kids aren’t local. Could be all of them aren’t.’
‘Why do you say that?’
Fred gestured to one of the forensic’s people who handed him something in a plastic bag which he showed to Garth. It was a note with something scribbled on it.